Dennis King <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >I'm just curious whether his work on this new text has changed any minds.
>
> Dear Dennis and everyone,
Here as promised are brief comments on the papers presented at Maynooth.
The abstracts were all on the Congress website.
*1. Koch, John (Aberystwyth) ‘A Celtic Verbal Complex in Tartessian?’*
Handout has very detailed translations of the inscriptions: I can scan and
send this to anyone who’s interested. In the questions afterwards Joseph
Eska remarked that he still wasn’t convinced that Tartessian is even
Indo-European. Pretty withering, really.
*2. Zeidler, Jürgen (Trier) ‘Celtic from the West or Celtic from the East’*
Utterly damming, though very measured and quiet delivery. Analysis of words
common in Celtic and proto-Celtic languages found ‘birch’, beaver’, ‘swan’,
‘chicken’, sieve’, ‘flesh hook’, ‘gorse’ ‘holly’ all have referents not
present in the Iberian Peninsula during the period in question. (But Koch
says flesh hooks were.)
*3. Collis, John (Sheffield) ‘Celtic from the West? a Critique’*
**Collis was too anxious to draw blood to be a balanced refutation; he
largely targetted Cunliffe’s use of classical sources, also ranted a lot
about ethnicity. Koch got very agitated and in the questions afterwards
said he’d never argued anything about ethnicity at all.
So I guess the answer to your question, Dennis, is that no, it doesn't seem
to have changed the minds of academics, and if anything, Barry Cunliffe's
contribution has set people against the theory.
LRF